Stalin or Napoleon better central planners?

That’s the second question.

Napoleon was a polymath. Stalin seems to have read a lot, but he sure wasn’t Napoleon’s equal.

And that’s the third question. =)
But on this one… Stalin’s style was all about the cadres. Sure, there were things he could not delegate. But most of the time his main concerns remained the same: to have the best available people in the right places and have them work toward maximally useful objectives, not wasting their time. So he talked to those who did things for him. Most of his waking time. All sorts of people — military commanders, spies, aircraft designers, songwriters… And of course much like he had competing spies working in parallel, he interviewed these separately, not assembling experts in one crowd to generate consensus unless necessary.
Books are nice, but they don’t come with “interrogate the author about this or that important point” feature.

The Code Napoleon settles the issue.In Napoleon’s letters, he says the point of the Code Napoleon was that he could tax any enemy to destruction with ease. But, he could do that because the Code was a such a huge improvement on previous French law.

Napoleon…considered Britain’s Industrial Revolution too advanced for France to be able to compete against her in open markets.

As wikings say, «citation needed». From Napoleon. Now, competing with the British fleets was certainly not something he could do directly. And they were the only serious player in the game left after they crushed Spanish and Dutch presence on the seas not by “too advanced Industrial Revolution” — not that this practically mattered.

Jim says:

Was Stalin a vastly better central reformer than Bonaparte?

Very different situations.

Stalin’s troubles on the outside were unavoidable, yet not urgent. His main problem was with the Trotsky’s followers and other local maniacs running rampant and eagerly fighting for power.

Napoleon’s main problem was with the Brits and their stranglehold on trade. And he could not fully isolate and reduce external interaction to the comfortable level of protectionism. Hence attempts to implement the “reverse blockade” of Europe, that’s just what it would take.

Inside… it was not that bad by the time he took power. Even his would-be assassins had obvious British ties. He did not have the problem of fighting off the next Robespierre wannabe so bad that he would need a secret police within a secret police within his secret police.